What I was reading in July
Books Bought
Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi
Books Read
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning, Jonathan Mahler
Mr Norris Changes Trains, Christopher Isherwood
Well that went by quick. July was a whirlwind of travel and love and celebration, and life just got in the way of reading. As a kid, my summers were so full of books and reading for pleasure. I remember my grandmother's house in Ohio, with its different smell and its cool front room which was protected by the heat of July by heavy shades and a deep front porch. I remember reading at the pool in her small town, while we ate, or after we ate, or if I had gotten too much chlorine in my eyes or grown too embarrassed of my body. And I remember reading back home in New York, sunburnt skin, the thin green rug on a cheek, the nearly endless golden light, and then the orange of the lamps in the evening.
There's a Peanuts cartoon where Peppermint Patty and Charlie Brown are sitting under a tree and talking about that incredible feeling of safety that came over you when you were a kid riding in the backseat of a car driven by your parents. Looking back, that's how those summers feel now.
And now, as an adult, summers aren't set apart from the rest of the year. It's just work with the addition of heat and humidity and a heavier sense that I should be doing more with my free time. This month though, this month was filled with "more" – with trips home and friends and weddings. And even with all that, at times the two books I read pulled me into that same space of hunger and curiosity that fueled my childhood summer reading.
On the surface there's not a lot these two books have in common, but in calling upon some rusty 5-paragraph comparative essay skills, it turns out there's a lot about masks and self-deception and what happens when those deceptions fall away. They're both stories of very particular time and place; setting is a major player in both.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning was featured in Nick Hornby's Believer column back in 2006, back when I was a moody broody 14 year-old. And as a moody broody teen living in New York, all I wanted was to leave and couldn't care less about the city's history. Ten years later, and at a distance of 500 miles, it's a different story. Funnily enough this year marked the 40 year anniversary of a lot of the events this books covers. It was eerie to be reading about the '77 blackout during a chance visit to the city on its anniversary. Mahler looks at a rough patch for the city and focuses on 1976-7, using the Yankee's season as a lens and a way to keep things moving, although as I learned 1977 had plenty going on all year long and didn't need too much in the way of storytelling device. The blackout, Reggie Jackson joining the Yankees, a crazy mayoral race, newspapers in crisis and combat, economic downturns, the Summer of Sam – one thing after another. What would it have been like to read this book in any other year? 40 years later and that same sense of "big crazy things keep happening" pervades. Cyclical movement or not, Mahler tells a great story of a crazy year with larger than life public figures and long-reaching effects. And as the best books do, it led to other questions -- what was Bushwick like before 1977? What is it like now? What happened in between? From a broad view – one year in an enormous city– to the specific – one or two neighborhoods in that city–this book felt a little like what Hornby called "reading going well" – one book laying down the path to further questions and further books. And it's always a delight to realize a city that I love and miss and call my own is still so unknown.
Mr. Norris Changes Trains, is the first Isherwood I've read, and I was a little reluctant. After making an effort this year to read beyond my comfort zone of fiction – and particularly 20th century fiction written by white men – I felt insecure about going back. The book (and a stack of others) was a gift from my uncle, and the handwritten letter he sent with his gift was a gift unto itself. Figuring that if this work means so much to my uncle it was worth my time, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself pulled in so completely. I started it on a weekend trip to New York, after spending time with my oldest friends, brought it on an overnight train trip to see another old friend get married, and finished it back in Chicago, at which point I was invested in the story of friends in 1930s Germany. Set during the Nazi's rise to power, there's a lot about masks and superficiality and doublespeak and dancing as the world darkens. As relevant as Nazi Germany is right now, I can't recall much of this book or what compelled me to finish it. I didn't come to this book as the best reader version of myself, and knew that as I was reading it. I feel as though I should give Isherwood another shake, should maybe shake myself by the shoulders and ask myself to come to books with the critical eye I was supposed to have acquired at college. Or that I should at least be asking questions of my indifference to this work.
Lately though, other questions have just felt more important. Which is uncomfortable because I think art is important. And Isherwood's work is about fascism and secrecy, which aren't exactly not relevant at the moment. And yet my thoughts still slide right off the book and these questions. I don't have answers to this, am just holding that notice in place to look at in the coming months. What resonates with my Uncle doesn't have to carry the same weight for me. But I'd like to give it another try. There's more Isherwood in the ziplock bags he uses to pack books, another chance, another way to exercise my creaky skills.